


Detached Scientific Curiosity

by Amber_and_Ash



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4055065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_and_Ash/pseuds/Amber_and_Ash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holographic kittens were a perfectly legitimate scientific research area, and Rodney was prepared to argue that indefinitely. On Atlantis, however, things never go that peacefully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before editing this year’s RT April bootcamp challenge, I realised I hadn’t published last June’s, so here it is. When I do challenges, I like to focus on two things that I either don’t do, or don’t do well. Here I tried ‘fluff’ and ‘cliff-hangers’.

Rodney flung himself into his usual chair at the triangular table and watched the doors shutter closed with gloom. Closed doors meant serious meetings, and he hated those. The presence of Kavanagh in the room meant this one would be even worse than usual. One of these days he’d rig an alarm he could remotely trigger to get him out of these things, when he wasn’t so busy with keeping Atlantis running and saving people’s lives. Rodney said, “Alright, what's this all about? Who’s done what, and why shouldn’t I kill them for it?”

“In this case, because that would be suicide,” said Elizabeth. Her tone was dry, but she was sitting primly with both hands clasped together on the table in front of her. It was a sure sign that she didn't want to be there any more than Rodney himself did.  She continued, “Doctor Kavanagh, why don't you explain to Rodney why you asked to see me.”

The meeting was called by Kavanagh? This meeting was definitely a waste of time.

Kavanagh looked sulky, but then that was how he usually looked. “Doctor Weir, I requested a meeting with you and Colonel Sheppard alone.”

She tilted her head in a half nod. “But I'm hardly in a position to make any decisions regarding your complaint without Rodney’s input, so in the interest of time I invited him to join us. So unless you've decided you don't need to say anything after all...”

“I'm not afraid to say it to his face,” said Kavanagh, clearly stung. It was a constant source of amazement to Rodney how little it took to get Kavanagh to bristle like a cat being threatened with a bath.

It also didn't need a genius of his calibre to guess the aim of Kavanagh complaint, and Rodney leaned back and threw an arm over his face. He’d hoped he’d trained his minions out of hoping someone else would rescue them from him, but he supposed there was a slow one in every batch.

Kavanagh’s voice was irritatingly loud. “McKay has been abusing his position as chief scientific officer to deny me access to the resources I need. Ever since the bug incident, he's been trying to make my life unbearable.”

Rodney sat bolt upright. “What bug incident?”

“You know,” said John. “When we got caught in the gate, and Kavanagh wanted to kill us because there was a very minor chance the engine might have overloaded?”

Ah, false alarm. Rodney had been worried Kavanagh had been performing unsanctioned experiments and thought Rodney knew about it. “I should hope he recommended closing the gate. Even his limited intellect could figure out that the puddle jumper might have turned into a reasonable facsimile of a bomb if I hadn’t been as much of a genius as I am.”

“And we're all very grateful it never came to that. See, Doctor Kavanagh? All cleared up. Rodney doesn't bear any grudge against you.”

Kavanagh crossed his arms. “I don't really care what he thinks about me. I care that he's stopping me from doing my work.”

Rodney snorted. “I don't think anything of you, and if you're talking about the transportation nonsense, then I'm not stopping you from doing your work. I’m stopping you from wasting a significant chunk of our very limited energy on something theoretically flawed.”

“If you actually read some of my requests before refusing them, you'd see—”

“And if you stopped submitting requests that are so obviously stupid, then I'd start—”

“Enough, both of you.” Elizabeth took a visible breath. “Doctor Kavanagh, we have limited pow—”

“We'd have more if McKay didn't waste so much playing with holographic kittens!”

John and Elizabeth stared at Kavanagh, and then, as one, at Rodney.

Oblivious to the fact that he’d lost his audience, Kavanagh was continuing with his favourite speech, “— tyranny and hypocrisy has become typical of the culture here at Atlantis, and—”

They all ignored him. Rodney could feel his face beginning to blush under their stares, but he straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. “I am researching the AI capabilities of Atlantis. They have what appears to be some sort of therapeutic device in the form of variably tangible holograms. Unlike other people in this room, I am perfectly capable of detached scientific curiosity.”

“I’m sure,” said Elizabeth, not quite managing to hide a smile. Rodney forced his blush down again.

“The last time I walked in on you, you were teasing them with a piece of string!” complained Kavanagh, hitting the upper registers.

“I was evaluating their intelligence,” said Rodney, but it sounded weak even to his own ears.

“As if anything that likes you could have any intelligence.”

Rodney did not wince. The opinions of someone like Kavanagh were so far beneath him that they could not hurt Rodney at all. Really. Rodney had a sudden irrational urge to go and lock down the program so that Kavanagh wouldn't be able to access it. After a moment's thought, he decided that wasn't so irrational at all. He wasn't having his kittens— that was, the therapeutic device exposed to people like Kavanagh and thinking that was what actual humans were like.

Kavanagh turned back to Elizabeth. “McKay's power mad and juvenile, and this is just further proof. I think it’s past time you seriously considered putting someone more deserving in charge of the scientific direction of Atlantis.”

“Doctor Kavanagh, if I want your opinion on the running of Atlantis, I’ll ask for it. Now as I was saying, we do have a limited amount of resources, but I appreciate the importance of individually directed research. I'm sure that we can find a suitable compromise. Rodney and I will calculate how much power we can spare for projects that... shall we say projects that don't have an immediate application? Projects such as your investigations into transport and Rodney's into AI holograms. We will then allocate every relevant scientist an equal portion of that to use as they see fit.”

Rodney opened his mouth, but Elizabeth stopped him with an upraised hand. “Providing the project in question doesn't pose a risk to crew or equipment.”

Rodney thought back to all the lectures he'd received over the years about allowing other people to make mistakes so that they could learn from them, and grudgingly nodded. His decision had nothing to do with Kavanagh and Elizabeth holding the therapeutic AIs hostage. “I can figure out a rationing system so that people can save up for what they want to do. And I guess I can make the time to go through the past research requests and mark out which ones won't damage anything more than the requester's ego.”

“Thank you, Rodney.”

“My project isn't some private indulgence, and I resent it being classed—”

“Doctor Kavanagh!” said Elizabeth. “I suggest you accept the victory you have achieved with a smile, or I might decide Rodney's original approach was the most reasonable after all. Do you understand me?”

Kavanagh opened his mouth, but closed it again in the face of Elizabeth's glare. Rodney didn't smirk at Kavanagh, tempted as he was. He didn't want to give the man any excuse to take further offence and waste more of everyone's time.

Elizabeth continued to glare at Kavanagh. “I said, do you understand me?”

“I understand you.”

Thank god. The man might not have been brought to see reason, but at least he'd been shut up for a while. But Rodney should have known any meeting with Kavanagh in it would have to end in disaster. Before Elizabeth was even half way through congratulating everyone on a successful compromise, she was cut off by the shrill sound of a siren.


	2. Chapter 2

John was well tuned to the signs of something going wrong, and an alarm wasn’t precisely subtle. He was out of his seat in a split second, but Rodney still beat him upright.

“What's going on?” asked Elizabeth.

“It's an alarm of some kind.”

_No shit, Sherlock._

“Yes, thank you, Kavanagh, for that amazingly informative—” Rodney cut off as he bounced off the still closed door. “John, unshutter the room.”

“I’m trying! Are you doing this, Elizabeth?”

“No.”

Not that they were likely to obey her if John wished otherwise, but his normal wasn’t working. No amount of wishing really hard to leave the room was doing any good. “Ford, report!”

_“No idea, Major. As far as I can tell, everyone has been sealed in, but nothing seems to be wrong.”_

“My minions don’t know anything,” said Rodney, letting go of his own set. “They don’t think it was something they did, but they’re still figuring it out.”

Kavanagh was probably trying to look commanding, but he just looked constipated.“Tell them to concentrate on getting us out of this room. We’re the best hope of figuring out the alarm, and we need access to proper equipment.”

“I would have thought it was perfectly obvious that the alarm is _why_ we're stuck here. Solve one, and we'll already have solved the other.”

John loved having Rodney around to point out the obvious stupidity of others. He smirked as Rodney deliberately turned his back on Kavanagh to speak to Elizabeth.

“There's this database cross-referencing thing that Kusanagi does on the different types of alerts. We should have an explanation in about ten minutes. Since there doesn't seem to be anything wrong other than the fact that we can't go anywhere...”

“We wait,” concluded Elizabeth.

“You mean you're just going to leave me stuck in here? With you people?” asked Kavanagh.

“You aren't exactly my first choice for seven minutes in heaven either, you know,” said Rodney. It was milder than what John would have said if he'd thought of something witty in time, but speed had it’s advantages.

“Well at least I can find people willing to sleep with me without having to rely on them feeling sorry for me.”

“Really?” asked John. “Because, you know, knowing what I do about you, I'm thinking pics or it didn't happen.”

Kavanagh turned to him like he was a performing animal who'd decided to speak. “Major Sheppard. That was a completely inappropriate—”

“Yeah, your statement really was. Don't you think so, Rodney? Because I thought so. I'm surprised you realised it though.”

“Children! Do I have to put the two of you in separate corners?” asked Elizabeth.

John decided it wasn't the moment to push Elizabeth and smiled in apology. Instead, he took her unintentional advice and strolled to the far side of the meeting area, making himself comfortable on the floor. Rodney slipped down the wall to sit next to him.

“You don't have to defend me, you know. I've been dealing with people like that for a long time.”

“Eh,” replied John. “I wasn't really defending you. Just taking the opportunity to needle Kavanagh. I'm sure you understand the temptation.”

“Actually, I was being honest when I said I don't feel anything about him. He's one of the people I know I'm going to disagree with before he opens his mouth, but he's hardly unique in that. It irritates me when he pretends to be as smart as I am, but that's about it.”

“You're really not upset Kavanagh wanted to kill us?”

“Think about it, Sheppard. If the situations had been reversed, and I'd been the one trying to solve the problem on Atlantis? Well, if I'd been the one trying to solve it, I would have known from the jumper here how to retract the pods without the risk of overloading anything, but if I'd been as limited as Kavanagh is and trying to solve it? Do you really think I wouldn't have made the exact same recommendation? Honestly, Kavanagh's sensible regard for the continuance of his life is one of the few things I actually approve of in the man.”

John wanted to answer that, but wasn't sure how to start. What Rodney did wasn’t the same thing at all. Rodney's pessimism wasn't a self-centred laziness; it was an overdeveloped ability to predict bad outcomes. Rodney might come across as a coward to people who took him at face value, but John knew better. John was now starting to worry whether Rodney himself knew better. John opened his mouth to at least try to convey some of that when Rodney sat suddenly upright. Elizabeth and Kavanagh caught their body language and stopped speaking as well.

Rodney listened for several minutes and then said “ah” into the silence.

“Rodney,” said Elizabeth slowly when he didn't continue. “Was that a good ‘ah’ or a bad ‘ah’?”

“Neither, really.” Rodney pulled himself off the floor and onto a chair. “It’s a fire drill.”

“It’s a fire drill?”

“That’s what I said. Did you suddenly stop speaking English while I wasn’t paying attention?”

John exchanged glances with Elizabeth as he retook his own seat. “Rodney, if it’s a fire drill, who called it, and why have we been _locked in_?”

Rodney waved his hands at him. “We're still working on figuring out how it got triggered, but there’s still so much about Atlantis that we haven't figured out yet. For all we know, it's an automatically scheduled processes that has been running every so often for the last ten millennia.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “As interesting as that all is—”

“But I can tell you why we’ve been locked in. The ancients didn’t believe in evacuating. The fire protocols are pretty much the same as the flood protocols. They seal everything off and pull out the oxygen from the affected areas. Luckily for us, it hasn’t designated this room as an affected area, so we still have the fans.”

“Alright. So how do we switch the fire drill off?”

“Yeah, that’s another thing we're still trying to figure out,” said Rodney, his hands tracing more enthusiastic sign language. “If it had been a false alarm, or even a real fire, I'd feel a lot more confident that we could solve it quickly. Drills aren’t really designed to be short-circuited. They don't seem to come with a 'never-mind' option. I really need to have physical access to proper equipment.”

“That's what I just said!” complained Kavanagh, but John everyone ignored him.

“Let's think about this logically. If the bulkheads sealing was the standard tactic, then how did the Ancients override it if they got trapped on the same side as a real fire?”

“They didn't.”

John blinked. “Then what did they do?”

Rodney shrugged. “They ascended?”

John wasn’t the only one to give Rodney a look.

Rodney spread his hands in surrender. “Really, I have no idea. Maybe there are lockers full of isolation suits we haven’t found yet. Maybe they had Asgard-style teleportation they activated in emergencies. Or maybe they were all just expected to happily sacrifice their lives. All I do know is the bulkheads aren't designed to withdraw again until the emergency is over. The Ancients were amazing engineers, but the sanctity of life wasn’t always high on their list of priorities.”

“Great. So we just wait here until it goes away by itself, or we starve to death, whichever comes first. Wonderful ideas you have there, McKay. I can really see why they appointed you chief scientific officer.”

“Unfortunately it isn't that simple. As much as being stuck here without food or water concerns me, and believe me it concerns me very much, that isn't the most urgent thing here. We have teams off world, and there's reason to believe the lockdown extends to the gate shield.”

John's breath caught. “Reason to believe?”

“Zelenka just had the Chinese Technician guy check, and he can't access the gate controls at all.”

There was a beat of silence. John was confident that he spoke for everyone in the room when he said, “Shit.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

Rodney paced, monitoring his team as best as he could through his data pad. He hated being this passive, but, as much as it hurt to admit it, he could do nothing else. He would distract more than a help if he tried to direct. That didn’t mean he didn’t keep a very close eye on the results in case they missed any spark of inspiration. There weren’t any sparks.

“How much longer?” asked John.

_‘Are we there yet?’_ translated Rodney irritably. “I still can’t tell you.”

“Can’t you give me anything?”

“No. Things like this, you change something and let the whole thing run through. If that doesn’t fix it, then you try again. If we knew which ‘something’ was going to work, we’d do that first and be done already.”

“It’s just we only have another half an hour before the next scheduled return and—“

“I know that. My whole team knows that. But there’s nothing we can do about them right at this minute, and you asking about it _isn’t helping_.” Rodney winced when his voice squeaked. He needed to calm down. No-one took him seriously when he panicked. People were almost universally prejudiced against sensible and justified panic in reaction to stressful situations. John seemed to be restraining himself to a manly vibrating, and Elizabeth put a hand on his arm. It irritated Rodney, but he couldn’t have said why.

“Teams have been trapped off-world before,” said Elizabeth. “They’ll wait for confirmation that the shield has been raised before they try to come through.”

“Yeah, until a team is coming in hot and needs to come through at a run to avoid the pursuing wraith. We both know that safe worlds in Pegasus don’t stay that way.”

“Let’s not borrow trouble, and concentrate on solving the problem in front of us. Is there anything we can do to help from here, Rodney? Or an alternative way for us to get people into the gate room with the doors sealed?”

Rodney didn’t know whether to be grateful or not for Elizabeth’s intervention. On one hand, she had stopped John from talking about the off-world teams again, and Rodney had vivid enough mental images of all the things that could go wrong without John bringing it up all the time. On the other hand, he didn’t have an answer for her, and he hated not having answers.

“I don’t… no, not really. If they had secret passageways, then they’re still secret.”

Kavanagh, who Rodney was doing a fair job of forgetting about, seemed to decide he needed to refill his attention quota. “If you spent more time working on how to keep us alive, and less time jaunting about the galaxy and indulging yourself with your own personal projects, we’d probably have more options right now.”

John straightened. “Do _you_ know how to get us out of here?”

“If I’d been allowed to extend the transportation system, I would. We could have used that.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “It wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t work under ideal circumstances, let alone with everything locked down. And is this really the time to be bringing this up?”

“Dr Kavanagh. Might I remind you of a previous conversation in similar circumstances? Perhaps you should look into what we can do now, without concerning yourself with what we can’t.”

That seemed to mean something to Kavanagh, because he huffed off with his own data-pad without saying anything further. Rodney returned to monitoring the progress of his team. John shifted around to read over his shoulder, and Rodney moved the pad to one side so that he could see.

“That was pretty tame, for you,” said John softly.

Rodney didn’t pretend to misunderstand. He wasn’t good at keeping things to himself anyway. “Just… what if Kavanagh’s right? Not about the transportation thing, that’s still stupid. But maybe if I had spent more time—“

“You work sixteen hour days as it is. If you spent any more time studying anything, Heightmeyer would be prescribing you therapeutic devices of the chemical kind.”

“A lot of time off-world on missions don’t really need me. I’d have more time for other things if I didn’t go. And there’s the preparing, and the recovering…”

“You’re doing the right thing. We don’t know when we’ll need you off-world. There will always be parts of Atlantis we don’t understand, no matter how much time you spend on it. This is not your fault.”

Rodney snorted. Everything that went wrong with Atlantis was his responsibility, and that made it his fault when it went wrong. His data-pad dinged and he pawed at it. It didn’t take long to absorb the information and he pushed it away again to massage his forehead.

“I’m guessing that wasn’t an announcement that they would be serving chocolate pudding at supper tonight,” said John.

“More like they wouldn’t be serving anything tonight. My team has run out of reasonable solutions. They’ve been forced to move onto unreasonable solutions.”

“Elizabeth?” asked John.

“I heard.”

He looked up at Elizabeth and noted her grim expression. He felt like a six-year-old standing over the shattered remains of a vase. He was suddenly nostalgic for all those times when screwing up would have meant dying, because then he didn’t have to worry about the consequences.

“We’ve had success from unreasonable solutions before, right?” said John. “And who knows how long the alert lasts. It could be over soon by itself anyway.”

None of them believed that. Rodney pulled the data pad back towards him, and started again from the top, double checking every step of his minions’ work.

“You’re all missing the obvious.”

Oh yay, Kavanagh was over his sulk. “That you’re interrupting me while I’m trying to work? No, I noticed that part.”

“You think you might have another solution, Dr Kavanagh?”

“One that involves you keeping quiet?”

“Rodney, hear him out,” said Elizabeth, using her ‘managing’ voice.

Rodney narrowed his eyes. He didn’t appreciate being managed. Did this mean she trusted Kavanagh more than she trusted him now? He knew he wasn’t solving the problem, but he hadn’t thought she’d start thinking him a failure this quickly. He crossed his arms and glared at Kavanagh. “Tell us what we’re missing, then, oh great one. Amaze me with your stunning intellect.”

“The most certain way to kill any alarm is to pull the plug. We just need to cut power to life-support.”

Rodney stood up, to better convey his sarcasm. “Oh, what a good idea. I mean, it’s not like that system does anything important, like, say, _supporting our lives_.”

“A few minutes isn’t going to hurt us any.”

“And it isn’t going to help us any, either. Even if the alarm doesn’t have some sort of emergency power, which is the sort of thing an emergency system seems likely to have, it will probably just leave the doors sealed shut. Atlantis might have a mental component, but this isn’t Star Trek. Doors aren’t going to usefully either open or close to suit your needs when you shoot them.”

“It will probably leave the doors closed?” asked Elizabeth.

“Almost certainly,” upgraded Rodney rapidly. “And the longer we have power down, the longer we aren’t in a position to research real solutions.”

“You just claimed you don’t have any reasonable solutions left to try. This one sounds pretty reasonable, all things considered.”

“Hang on a moment,” said John, brightening suddenly. Rodney found himself calming down response, and hoped John wasn’t about to agree with Kavanagh. “Your team isn’t getting anywhere trying to override the fire drill, right? How about we try the opposite? We convince Atlantis that we’ve done whatever steps it’s expecting us to have done, and let Atlantis switch everything off as normal.”

Rodney thought about that and nodded. “It seems reasonable they had some system to declare the whole thing complete and everyone reported in or whatever. The signals have to be coming from somewhere, so maybe I can trace it back to a console that accepts that kind of information.”

“Sounds like you have some work to do,” said Elizabeth.

Rodney grinned and got busy.


	4. Chapter 4

John felt his own nerves ease at Rodney's enthusiasm. Despite what he’d said earlier, he didn’t really think the drill would be ending by itself any time soon – nothing in the Pegasus galaxy was that kind. He also knew Elizabeth didn't appreciate the problem with the gate teams. The worst consequence wasn’t people being stranded in a hostile environment, although the thought of that was enough to make his skin crawl. Ten seconds after they came out of lock-down, if not sooner, every member would know the gate had been unavailable. If the command team wasn't seen to have done something, people would lose faith in them. They'd be that much less confident, that much less curious, that much less trusting, and that would be a downward spiral of getting more and more people killed.

Elizabeth didn’t really understand the terror of the unknown, and how much the teams needed a safety net under them to be brave.

Rodney spoke up at his usual triple speed, but luckily nothing too technical. “The main connections to the gate room travel right under our feet her and there’s every chance the ones controlling the fire alert is active as we speak. Fortunately for us all, I’m enough of a genius that I should be able to figure it out from a routing panel without needing the full console in front of me.”

“There’s a panel in here?” asked Elizabeth.

Rodney was already in the process of disappearing under the table. “Of course there’s a panel in here. This is Atlantis. There’s always a panel.”

John pushed back his chair to give Rodney more room. He watched what Rodney was doing briefly, but was soon forced to look back up at Elizabeth. The sight would tempt a saint, and John was no saint. The fabric of Rodney’s trousers had pulled taut across his butt as he reached into the innards of Atlantis, and he was perfectly positioned in front of John. But the last thing anyone needed was Kavanagh accusing them of giving Rodney special treatment because the military leader liked looking at him in compromising positions. A few grunts and curses later and a floor plate come skidding out from under the table top.

“McKay,” said Kavanagh. “You can’t seriously expect to figure it out from there! You’re going to damage—“

“Okay, everyone who isn’t the smartest man in this room? Shut up now. I mean it this time.”

Kavanagh started to his feet, so John stood up himself. At that point Kavanagh seemed to think that sitting down was a good idea after all. They sat. Rodney ordered a number of comprehensible and incomprehensible things from his team mates, while taking measurements with the device that John had been assured had _not_ been chosen because of its resemblance to a sonic screwdriver. John listened to Rodney insult and cajole his team with a familiar warmth pooling in his stomach. John had given in and conformed to expectations of normality. Rodney was unashamedly and unapologetically himself. He held the entire idea of social manipulation with false modesty in contempt. In being willing to put his true self out there, Rodney showed more guts than almost anyone else John knew. He shouldn’t have to believe the way Kavanagh thought was representative of people who mattered.

“Ow!” Rodney’s voice partly muffled by the table but perfectly comprehensible.

“What happened?” asked Elizabeth

“Nothing!” he replied, entirely too quickly to be convincing.

“Rodney. That didn’t sound like nothing.”

“Okay, so it wasn’t nothing. I was briefly exposed to an electrostatic phenomenon, increasing my chances of neuropathy and quite probably statically affecting my ability to learn new oculomotor tasks. If I manage to get out of this place without some sort of long term—”

John interrupted before Rodney could really get going. “He got a mild shock from something. He’ll be fine.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Hey!” said Rodney, moving around so his face was closer to the edge of the table, co-incidentally right next to John’s chair. John determinedly didn’t think any leading thoughts about Rodney in that position. “How come you believe John when he says that, and you didn’t believe me? I would think that I—”

“Work now, Rodney, complain later,” said John, nudging Rodney’s foot gently with his own.

“I am working. I can multi-task.”

“You can’t be working very well if you’re getting shocked,” said Kavanagh.

“Yes, well, Atlantis gets like that sometimes,” Rodney said, his voice becoming more muffled as his head disappeared again. A couple of thumps and another muttered curse, and Rodney was once again talking with his team. The conversation became more animated for a time, before abruptly cutting off.

Rodney crawled out from under the table, but didn’t bother getting up further than cross-legged. “One minor problem, but we’ve found where the signal is going and checked the visuals of that room. There’s a console in there and every indication is that it can declare this drill over and lift the lock-down.”

John knew better than to start celebrating. “And yet you don’t look happy.”

“That’s because of our one minor problem. The console is over there, and we’re over here. There isn’t a single person on the right side of the bulkheads.”

“Can’t we fake the source of the signals?”

“Kusanagi is trying now, but since her first attempt didn’t work…” Rodney trailed off and shrugged.

John stopped himself from expressing his frustration. It was only seventeen minutes now until the next scheduled return, and every minute was a minute they could be getting into trouble.

“Rodney, do you have a layout plan? Something that will show where your console is?”

“I... give me a second.”

Rodney fiddled with his data-pad and handed it up, then leveraged himself to his feet.

“What are you thinking?”

“I wasn’t going to suggest this when it was just a matter of us being stuck in here, but we do have men with access to the armoury, and the armoury does contain cutting equipment.”

Kavanagh looked at him like he’d just proposed to sacrifice his first born on a ceremonial pyre. “You can’t seriously mean to _cut through_ Atlantis. This is a living monument, the most precious thing we will ever see in our entire lives, and you want to take a chainsaw to it?”

“Oh no, of course not.” John waited the beat for Kavanagh to stop looking horrified. “They’ll use plasma cutters.”

Kavanagh spluttered, but John couldn’t enjoy that long. It wasn’t Kavanagh’s opinion that mattered here. John turned so he could look at Elizabeth and Rodney instead. “The armoury’s pretty close to Rodney’s console, and they’ll be very careful to do the bare minimum of damage.”

Elizabeth concentrated on her hands for a minute. She looked up. “Rodney?”

Rodney clearly wasn’t happy with the idea, but John stared at him with all the appeal he could muster. Rodney caught his look and sighed. “It's currently our best bet. I’m pretty confident that we can repair the damage the marines do afterwards.”

Elizabeth looked from one to the other again then nodded decisively. “Alright. Major Sheppard, give the orders.”

John turned away to do exactly that. The less time his people were exposed for, the better.


	5. Chapter 5

Rodney was usually on the side of elegance against brute force, but their situation could no longer wait for elegance. Rodney listened to the half conversation as John gave instructions to the marines about where to cut. 

John’s tone sharpened. “What’s going on? People, talk to me,” said John.

They were ignoring John. Possibly bad, but possibly fine. No point in panicking until—

“Is he alive?”

Well. That was _not_  promising. Promising would have been ‘what can you see?’ or ‘do you understand what you need to do?’. When things were going well, people very rarely felt the need to ask if someone was alive.

“Keep me updated,” said John, before turning to them. “At least you’ll be happy, Kavanagh. Atlantis will remain unspoiled by the invading barbarians. She hit the marine with enough of a charge to put him unconscious. His buddy is talking to Doctor Beckett now, but they really need to get him to the infirmary.”

Rodney was horrified. “They can’t. If they could, they wouldn’t have needed to do any of this in the first place.”

“Yes Rodney, we’re all aware of that.”

“Can they put on protective gear and try again? Maybe through a wall instead of a door?”

“’He’. Can ‘he’ do something. There’s only one person left conscious. And no, he can’t. We don’t store the protective gear and the cutters in the same place, so there isn't anyone who can get to both.”

“So eager to risk other people’s lives, McKay?” said Kavanagh. “Your total indifference to the risks is just typical of you. As long as it isn’t your own ass on the line, you don’t give a damn how risky or desperate a solution is.”

Rodney bit back his first response, which was that the plan had actually been John’s idea. John was looking grey already, and while people might accuse Rodney of being oblivious to the feelings of others, he didn’t think John needed that particular reminder.

John might have followed the same line of thought, however, because his tone was ugly when he said, “I don’t think that’s an argument you want to be having with us, Kavanagh.”

Rodney was somewhat impressed that Kavanagh firmed his spine and replied. “No, you’re right. The argument I want to have is why we’re letting people get injured when there’s a far simpler, risk-free option we could be trying.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I agree. It’s time to risk cutting off the power. We need the doors open now more than ever.”

Rodney threw his hands in the air. “Isn’t there enough going wrong without us wasting time and making things worse?”

“It won’t make things worse. The only real objection you have is that I suggested it. If the idea had come from your pet Japanese girl, you would have tried it already.”

“Kusanagi wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place. It’s stupid.”

“Perhaps so,” said Elizabeth, “But at this point I believe it’s worth a try. Tell your team what they need to do.”

“They don’t need to do anything,” said Rodney, crossing his arms. “Because this won’t work.”

“Doctor Kavanagh, I assume you know what needs to be done?”

“Of course.”

“Then on my authority, go ahead and order them to shut everything down.”

Kavanagh shot him a smug look as he activated his earpiece, but McKay was more interested in hearing who he contacted. He didn’t demand loyalty from the scientists who worked with him, but it would be useful to find out who wasn’t bright enough to realise that Kavanagh wasn’t worth listening to. A few beats later, and some background shouting, Zelenka’s voice came through Rodney’s own earpiece.

“One of boys says Doctor Weir order power cut to life support. Should I really be letting that?”

Rodney almost ordered him to do make sure no-one did anything of the kind, but that would just get Elizabeth involved directly, and Zelenka liked Elizabeth.

Rodney took the middle path. “It is a legitimate order from Doctor Weir.”

“Understood,” the man said. He sounded as unhappy as Rodney felt, but he must have realised the argument had already been fought because he didn’t raise any of the obvious arguments. The sudden cessation of the ventilation system sounded paradoxically loud in the enclosed area. They all looked up at the ceiling, as if there was something there that could be seen, before remembering themselves. John turned to the doors.

“It isn’t working, Kavanagh.”

“Give it a few minutes. It won’t lose power all at once.”

Rodney pointedly leaned against the very present doors, although he had to admit he would have been thrilled if they’d disappeared. Almost enough to make up for being wrong,

“This really isn’t going to work?”

Rodney was proud of himself for not snapping back at John. “It really isn’t. You know I wouldn’t let your marine suffer if I could help it, right? And I would have said something if I’d thought it would be dangerous for them.”

“Relax, Rodney, everyone who’s not an idiot knows that. Believe me, with the number of times you have put your own ass on the line when it came to risky and desperate solutions? There isn't a single sane person who would think you’d give anything but the best advise you knew. Although we might suspect that advise is a little biased towards having someone else to do the sweaty and uncomfortable bits.”

Rodney realised that John was teasing before he could put his foot in it, and tried to reply in kind. “Delegating is a very important life skill.”

“And one I’m fond of too.” John looked at his watch. “How much longer are you going to give this?”

“Nothing longer.” Rodney pushed away from the door. “Elizabeth, if anything was going to happen it would have happened by now. We need the power back to—”

“It could still—“

“No, don’t interrupt. You lost your interruption privileges when you failed. When this is all over, I’ll make sure you get awarded a gold star for effort, but now the adults have to work. Elizabeth?”

“Alright. Switch us back on.”

“ _Thank_ you. Zelenka? Power back, please.”

Rodney ducked under the table again, and then waited. “Well? Switch the power back on.”

Zelenka’s voice was a little unsteady. “I have already switched back on. No fans. And…”

“And?”

“About half controls went on and are off again.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Rodney said, reaching into the panel as he switched over to Kusanagi.

“Rodney?” asked John.

“Give me a minute to figure out just how screwed we are.”

Miraculously, they gave him the minute. He was a lot slower coming out from under the desk, but he couldn’t postpone the news much.

“Looks like whatever’s running the drill had some simulated fire for some sort of scenario. But when the power went out, that triggered alerts that made the simulation think that the fire had spread. It’s shutting things down in response, including most of the equipment we were using to try and fix it.”

John twitched. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It doesn’t sound good because it isn’t good. I _knew_ this was a bad idea. Why didn’t I stop it? And why does no one ever listen to me? Do you people hire a surgeon and then take the receptionist’s advice on where they should cut?”

Elizabeth tried to sound calm. “I hardly think this is the time to indulge in ‘I told you so’.”

“Why not? It’s not like any of us have anything better to do with our time! With the equipment down, we’re pretty much clean out of better things to do.”

None of them had an answer for that, leaving that unnatural and disturbing quiet in the absence of the fans. In that silence, heart-stoppingly loud, came the sound of the gate beginning to engage.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

John listened with resignation as the technician confirmed it was Stackhouse's team, and Stackhouse confirmed they were coming in hot. “Sergeant, is there a nearby position that’s defensible?”

“No, sir. We’re pretty much trapped against the gate at this point.”

“Alright. You need to hold tight. We’re still working on lowering the shield.”

“But we’re not working on it,” complained McKay. “We’ve resorted to praying to fictional beings that it ends by itself.”

“Do _you_ want to be the one to tell that team out there that? That we've just given up, and we hope they don't mind?”

Rodney didn’t meet his eyes.

“No, I didn’t think so.”

John was aware he was being unfair, but the whole situation was unfair, and he didn't see why anyone should feel left out.

“Perhaps we should tell them to close the gate and redial in another hour,” said Elizabeth. “Give us a little time to come up with more options.”

“They're being chased. They need all their concentration just to make sure the enemies have to keep their heads down. Even one person having to take the time out to dial again will put them at risk. For as long as we can keep the gate open, we owe it to them to give them that chance. And if they’re going to get killed because of this, then the very least we can do is show them the courtesy of listening to them when it happens.”

Elizabeth looked unhappy, which suited John. He'd bet that Stackhouse wasn't exactly thrilled either. Elizabeth shook her head and took a breath. “Rodney, there must be something else we can do. Something we haven’t tried yet.”

“I’m thinking, but I can't produce miracles on demand. Not even I can solve the impossible every time you ask me to.”

“Not every time. Just this time.”

Rodney snorted.

“What a pity you can’t just use your kittens to take care of everything,” said Kavanagh snidely.

John caught Rodney's eyes as Rodney's face lit up. Out of the mouth of babes — or at least a man-child. Without bothering to reply, Rodney slipped back under the table. John walked up to Kavanagh, backing him into the wall. He clasped Kavanagh’s shoulders between his hands and said, “Kavanagh, all those things I’ve thought about you? I take it all back. I’m _glad_ Elizabeth talked me out of spacing you.”

Before Kavanagh could do more than splutter in confusion, John joined Rodney. It didn't matter how awkward or uncomfortable the confined space was, there was no way he was going miss it.

“Yes!” exclaimed Rodney to himself.

“Yes?”

“We have a direct video feed from the control room.”

The details were a little hard to make out on the small pad, but it looked like any other Ancient lab to John. One thing was absent however.“It doesn't have a pedestal.”

“The program doesn't need a pedestal. To be honest, I’m not sure if the whole pedestal thing is an energy conservation thing or just a convention, because we’ve encountered plenty of holograms outside of one. Anyway, these particular holograms are designed to be active wherever the patient is, which includes the labs and control rooms.”

Rodney alternated between the panel and his pad, deep in conversation with his team. Rodney sighed with satisfaction, putting away his not-a-sonic-screwdriver and placing the pad flat on the floor. Since he wasn't using the panel any more, John suspected they didn't strictly need to stay under the table, but he didn’t suggest moving. The faint outlines of a sleeping kitten appeared on the console table and solidified. John had to suppress his 'aww' reflex. The little thing would have converted the most hardened cat hater into a Bast priestess.

“Come on, Dee,” crooned Rodney to it through the speakers. “Wake up now.”

“Dee? You named her Dee? Should I be glad you didn’t decide to name her ‘Cat’?”

“You don’t have naming privileges over _every_ single thing in Atlantis.”

“I’m starting to think I should. I’m going to make that a rule. No one gets to name anything without running it past me first.”

“So that we can end up with more names like ‘puddle jumper’?”

Rodney tried to wave his hands in indignation, and hit John. Since the alternative was the table, Rodney was probably happy with that. John, with the vibrations agitating his complaining bladder, was less impressed. “I think she's awake.”

Very faintly, under the sounds of Stackhouse's battle, was the sound of an indignant cat.

“There we go, little one. Yes, yes, I know it's cold and you can't see me. As soon as I can, I'll give you a proper brushing you deserve.”

John concentrated on the softness in Rodney’s expression and ignored the panic from his earpiece and the discomfort in his body. He understood Rodney's attachment. If it ever came to a fight, John wouldn’t make him fight alone. And perhaps... perhaps it was time to let Rodney know that.

Rodney's tone of voice changed abruptly. “Kusanagi, get me control of one of the spot lights. I don't care—  _thank_ you.”

Rodney started drawing shapes on the data pad, and John saw a dot of light appear next to the kitten.

“Beautiful one, can you do something for me? Can you play the pounce game? See the light? Isn’t it tempting? Isn’t it a pretty yellow? You don’t want it to get away,” said Rodney, wriggling the light.

“Cats are colour blind,” said John, his mind on automatic as he watched the kitten stroll nonchalantly in that direction and sniff at it.

“Not yellow/blue they aren't. And in case it slipped your mind, this isn't a _real_ cat. They aren’t even based on our domestic earth breed as far as I can tell, although I guess our cats might be descendants of whatever they’re modelled—"

Rodney moved the light to rest on top of a button, and the kitten tapped the spot (and therefore the button) delicately with one paw. Rodney snapped off the light. “There we are, Dee. What a clever cat you are.”

Another tone change. “Kusanagi, can you access the console now? How do I switch off the drill? I'm giving you a minute, I'm giving you all— hang on. Relax, Dee, it's just some lights and noise. Like in my lab, remember? Nothing to worry about, it won't hurt you.”

The kitten turned her back on the display like the very thought of her being afraid of it was absurd.

“Can't you find a different code? Yes, I know— Never mind, get me a blue spotlight as well. Yes, yes, that'll do.”

“Dee, sweetheart, can be try again, but two in a row this time? Pounce blue then yellow. Blue then yellow. Excellent! Who’s the smartest kitten in the galaxy? _Gate room—_ ” Rodney’s voice was suddenly full volume through his earpiece, and John almost hit his head on the bottom of the table. “— _your controls will be back in thirty seconds. Be ready._ Last one, yellow. Come on, don't be like that. I'll bring the mouse next time, I promise. That’s it. Dee, you’ve done so well. I’m so proud of you. ”

A tone vibrated through John in a deep counterpoint to the original siren. John clambered out and waited at the doors. It sounded for almost exactly Rodney’s promised thirty seconds, and the shutters opened as it went silent. John pushed through them into the gate room just in time to see the team come stumbling through the now unshielded gate. The technician immediately closed it, and everyone took a moment to breath.

“Anyone injured?”

“No, sir. It was close, but we’re all fine. What happened here?”

“Oh, you know. Fire drill. They always have them at the most inconvenient possible time. Now, I'm afraid you have to excuse me.”

John smirked at their confusion and left it to Elizabeth to explain. He had a marine to check on — after a brief detour to the toilets.

  



	7. Chapter 7

It took a while for Rodney to put Dee back to sleep after the outrage of loud noises and the absence of petting. By the time he had replaced the panel and made his way into the gate room, the human fuss was already over. He joined Elizabeth and Kavanagh at the top of the stairs.

Elizabeth smiled at him. “Apparently Beckett thinks the marine will make a full recovery, so all's well that ends well. I think this was a fine example of what we can achieve when we all work together.”

Rodney opened his mouth to protest that at high volume and sufficient speed and duration for Elizabeth to realise the utter fatuousness of that comment, but he caught sight of Kavanagh's expression. Kavanagh looked much like Rodney would have if he'd sucked a lemon – sour and seconds away from death. Rodney abruptly changed his direction.

“True. It took Kavanagh a while to get there, but he came through at the end.” John was such a bad influence on him. That kind of insult would never have occurred to Rodney before they'd met.

“But... you can't be— ”

Rodney placed a hand on his shoulder. “No, _well done_. It takes talent to realise how to make use of other people's work, and I didn't know you had it in you.”

“Are you being— ”

Rodney walked past him, dismissing his very existence. “Elizabeth, I think I better put in an appearance in person with my team if we're done here?”

“Yes, go. Figure out how to stop this kind of thing from happening again.”

“Believe me, I intend to. Along with stocking up all the places I go with emergency food and water. I swear, the Ancients are determined to make me starve to death. The sheer statistical likelihood of— ”

“Rodney. Go.”

“Well, ah, yes,” said Rodney.

He was aware that his exit was less than graceful, which was really unfair considering he was the hero in all this. He'd have to get tips from John about how to do it properly.

Rodney strode into the main lab, ignoring all the people clustered in the room as he made for the shark-bait board. It was supposed to have been called something like 'lessons learned', but Rodney felt that 'survive anything on this board again and McKay will cut you into tiny little pieces to see whether Atlantis has any sharks' board gave a more accurate indication of the content and consequences. He added in large strokes, _No switching off life support systems. No matter how good an idea you think it is. You do_ _not_ _know better than McKay._ Suppressed laughter ran through the room. Then, after a pause, he added in smaller letters: _Don't try to cut into Atlantis. It bites back._

He turned to look at his audience to find he had a full house. Even the minions that usually found labs far away from him had drifted in to join them. Even Kavanagh seemed to have trailed after him, standing red faced at the back of the room but thankfully silent. Rodney took great glee in paying him no attention whatsoever.

“Alright people, this miraculously had no serious consequences, and I'm very impressed of the work you did to overcome it. But the situation should never have happened in the first place, and it's our job now to make sure it never happens again. So. This might be the only chance I'll ever give you to bore me with your puerile ideas. Make the best of it. Plans to prevent or deal with any fire drills, flood drills, wraith drills, volcano drills, giant attacking monster drills, go.”

Rodney managed to field the suggestions without reducing anyone to tears, which he always counted as a win for his interpersonal skills. Some of the ideas were even usable. Once the team was sufficiently upbeat and distracted, he retreated to his room to redeem an important promise. Rodney activated Dee and fussed over her. A waste of resources indeed. He was tempted to give _her_ Kavangh's job. He bet that she wouldn't suggest anything stupid like cutting off life support during a fire drill. His hand tightened involuntarily, and she meowed in inquiry.

“Nothing, Dee. Sorry.”

And there was nothing wrong with her name. It might not be grammatically appropriate Welsh, but 'Dark' was descriptive, accurate and unique. John 'puddle jumper' Sheppard, indeed.

His door opened with the barest of warnings, which meant it was man in question. Atlantis didn't like to keep John waiting. Rodney stepped in front of the kitten to hide her from view.

“Hey,” said John, doing that lean thing against the doorway that really shouldn't look as good as John made it look. Rodney had a theory that Atlantis was assisting somehow. It was the only thing that explained it.

“Hey. We're working on making sure something like that won't happen again. I hear your guy is going to be all right?”

“Yeah, Beckett thinks it was more of a warning protection thing than an actual electrical shock. He just needs to sleep it off.”

“That's good.”

“I wanted to tell you that you did a good job. Getting it all set up, and figuring out how to convince the kitten to press the buttons? Very smooth.”

“Well, thank you.” Rodney knew that, of course, but it was nice to know other people were aware of it too.

“You really had a deep connection with the kitten. I was very impressed.”

“Oh, you know. The natural result of making sure they're... I mean, checking that they're.... The result of complex science stuff that you wouldn't understand.”

“I see. So, I was thinking you need to expand the parameters on your experiment to see how well they cope with earth technology. You could activate them in front of my television after supper tonight. We could combine that with some experimentation to see which of the hot coffee substitutes is the least awful.”

Rodney felt his stomach go into free-fall. He really had to get the pressure changes Atlantis was having looked into. “Um, yeah. Sure.”

John grinned, and Rodney could feel himself starting to flush. He had to get John out of there before he saw something and thought something. “Now go away. I have very important things I need to do. Science things.”

“I won't keep you. I can tell that you're busy. Considering that Detached Scientific Curiosity is currently unravelling one of your socks and all.”

“What?” asked Rodney, turning around. Dee meeped at him from the floor where she was half-smothered in wool and Rodney groaned. So much for that.

“Nine o'clock, then. It's a date.”

Rodney spun back to see John disappearing out the door. “What??”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and commenting, and I hope you all enjoyed it :)


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